Somewhere in 2001, I bought a computer magazine which came with a Linux CD. I had heard of Linux before, but while we did have broadband back then and was technically capable of downloading a Linux distribution, this method was far easier. This was my first foray into Linux - it was Mandrake. Now, though, it seems the curtain has really dropped for the French Linux company.

Nonsense. Right off the top of my head I can divide the desktop distros into 3 major families with different philosophies: Debian family, Redhat Family, SUSE family. Or divide them another way: Fast & Loose (Fedora, Ubuntu, Mandriva, OpenSuse...), and Conservative (RHEL/CentOS/SL/SLED).

Mandriva is the only one on your list that is primarily focused on the desktop.

Apple has a solid product, which would qualify for the Conservative category, were it a Linux distro. Certainly, it's been of sufficient quality to blow the doors off Linux regarding desktop market share, even though it is hampered with the same market disadvantages, re: Windows as Linux bears, but comes at a premium price compared to the Linux giveaway.

You didn't get the point and you are out of context. Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy 13 years ago and was saved by Microsoft in-extremis. With that in mind, try to understand the point.

I use several distros personally and professionally. Don't get so emotionally involved with Mandriva. It's one of (too) many in the same class. And it appears that its time has come. Since you're already familiar with Linux, I'd suggest graduating to one of the enterprise desktop clones. Having the very latest packages used to be a benefit. But the Linux desktop has matured to the point that, today, it's more of a damned nuisance.

Don't get emotional about MacOS X. You don't get emotional because you don't use the distro. You are not qualified to give me advise on what I should use. I use Red Hat and Debian on my servers at work. I use Gentoo, Slackware and Mandriva at home. I use gentoo because I can have a full system compiled with -ggdb -O1 so I can get meaningful backtraces for software development. I have multi boot and VirtualBox. I know perfectly what the options are. I just prefer Mandriva for my desktop. I know you don't care and that it wouldn't change anything for you if it died but it would change something for me. So please, if you don't care then just don't comment.

Ah, but now my interest in the topic has been piqued. BTW, your percentage of posts in this thread has now increased from 22% (9/40) when I first checked, to 30% (15/55). Sorry. As much as you'd like that to be 100%, you can't have everything.

In fact, it seems you're having to counter quite a number of people who feel that (the French equivalent of) chapter 7 might be for the best in this case.

BTW, I'm not emotional about Mac OS. In fact, I've never used it. Not my bailiwick. But I know enough about it to appreciate its quality.

I find it odd that you would claim that Ubuntu is not primarily focused upon the desktop. Well, one could make a plausible argument that it is moving more in the direction of appliances. Which is as good an opening as any to point out the diversity within the *buntu family of distros.

I spent a few months using Lubuntu, very recently. Excellent desktop. Certainly not for smart phones or appliances. Xubuntu, as well. Though it has been a year or so since I have used it. I'd choose either of them before submitting to a KDE 'experience'. But there's Kubuntu, as well.

So there you have it. 3 *buntu distros + Mint which are focused upon the desktop, even if you don't think Ubuntu/Unity is. (My desktop is perfectly fine without being "rethought from the ground up".)

Look. If you choose a distro which is perpetually teetering on the brink of disaster, you are always going to be living in fear.

My Gnome 2.2.28 desktop sits upon a bedrock foundation of 4 organizations for at least another 6 years: Red Hat, Inc, CentOS, Fermilab, and CERN. And that's worth more than a whole slew of unnecessary control panel apps and wizards.

Look. I'm sorry your favorite distro is dying. But it's time to move on. That's how life works.

OK, I'll grant you that Ubuntu is focused on the desktop, for now. However, 3 *buntus + mint = 0.5 distros. *buntus are 99% dependent on Debian. If Debian were to close its doors, then you loose all the *buntus and Mint. Also Ubuntu is not contributing a lot. They do Unity and other specific stuff but it isn't very useful outside Ubuntu. Post a bug in Launchpad an you will see that 90% of the time they will answer 'upstream bug' (read: debian will fix it). On the other hand, Mandriva works to improve the desktop with the community. If/when Mandriva dies, I doubt all the employees will go work at Red Hat on desktop stuff. Red Hat doesn't employ much people in Brazil and Russia. I believe there is more chance that those people will be working for hedge funds and oil companies. That would be a major blow to free software in general. But those guys will be fighting to save their company like they did in the last 10 years and I'll support any way I can.